Subject: Re: [lojban] go'i: repeated referents or just sumti?

From: EWC <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 11:52:51 -0700

On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 01:35:07, "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
wrote:
>When we say "some people do this, some do that,
>and others do so and so", "some" and "others" mean "some people"
>and "other people", so we are in a sense requantifying from the
>same set ("people"), but obviously not just from the first "some
>people".

Which isn't how the paragraph on requantification works, unfortunately.
If you started with "three people" then you're always dealing with those
three; it would be "three people do this, two of them do that, some of
them do so and so", or {ci da poi prenu zo'u da co'e .ije re da co'e
.ije su'o da co'e}. If you didn't want everything restricted to the
first three people you just have to put the superset in the prenex, {ro
da poi prenu zo'u ci da co'e .ije re da co'e .ije su'o da co'e}.

>>I mean for {my} to be a separate variable that is restricted to the same
>>group of individuals in mind as {re le mlatu}. So that {re le mlatu cu
>>catlu my} would mean "two cats in mind look at each cat in mind".
>
>But that's easy to say explicitly: {re le mlatu cu catlu ro my}.

If that doesn't mean instead that two cats look at each of those two
same two cats, which is how I think the paragraph on requantification
would have it. We're forever after making claims about some of those
two cats after the initial quantification, so that {re le mlatu cu catlu
roboi my} is {re le mlatu zo'u my catlu ro my}. We've restricted {my}
to two nonspecific cats with the prenex, and the {roboi my} is each of
those two cats.

If we wanted each cat in mind to be looked at by exactly two cats in
mind, I think that would be {ro le mlatu zo'u reboi my catlu my}, with
the note that the two cats aren't the same for each cat. If we wanted
the same two cats it would be {ro le mlatu zo'u reboi my ce'e roboi my
catlu}, I think. I'm not sure how termsets interact with prenexes or
with requantification.

If requantification does "back up" past the initial quantification then
we're stuck if we want to quantify from that number. "There are three
things such that two of them do so and so and two of them do such and
such", for example. That seems like a reasonable use of
requantification as described in The Book, and I'm not sure how achieve
the same result otherwise.

-- 
EWC